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I'm gonna tell you tonight
about my journey from
why once was a former Christian Youth Minister
to how I got to where I'm now
There's a lot of bumps on the road,you know..
It seems pretty clear,yeah you were a minister
and now you're Muslim
there's a little bit more to it,inshaAllah
so..just bear with me
and hopefully you'll get something out of it
because the point is,at the end is I want you to get the message behind the story
because if I was travelling around the country just to tell my story
then I would be wasting time,it's on Youtube..anyone can go get it from anywhere in the world
So inshaAllah we're gonna begin at the beginning
I was born and raised in Greenville,South Carolina
and I was raised by my grandparents
because at a very early age my mother had stepped out
and my father was working two jobs
so it was me and my grandparents and my grandparents were
the traditional conservative southern Christian folkers,they say
they were..very very conservative in their ideals and their ideologies,in their ways,you know..
This we did it this way,this is the way you did it..every single day and that was it
And..we were very religious in the sense that we went to church on sundays
we went to church sunday evenings.we went to church wednesday
And in Christianity that's considered very religious
So..and it wasn't that hard for us to go to church,
and it wasn't difficult for my grandmother to drag me to church every sunday
which as a kid is what they had to do
because the church was two houses down from our house
there were two houses and then there was the church
So it was not hard for them to drag me every sunday
and..
I hated church as a kid
because of the simple reason that
you know..we were brought up United Methodist
And Methodist is..for any of you who know
it's very traditional,it's not like you think about
like screaming and shouting in church and all that
No..you listen to the preacher..you sit,stand up and you sing
you sit back down,you listen to the preacher..you stand up and sing
you sit back down,listen to the preacher,and that's it..that's all that happens
In the pews there are column and the chairs that are made of wood,
they're hard,you get tired of sitting there,you're fumbling around..
playing with the money that my grandmother gave me to put in the offering
playing with all of these things,that's what I remember from the church as a very small boy
The thing that I do remember enjoying about church was..sunday school
Sunday school is what I got enjoyment from because
we went to sunday school
we painted pictures
you know..of like Noah building the Ark
we painted all these pictures
of Moses splitting the Red sea
We learnt the stories of Moses freeing the Children of Israel from Egypt
We learnt the story about him splitting the Red sea
We learnt the story about Noah and the Ark
We learnt the story about David and Goliath
You know,you learn all these beautiful stories in sunday school
So this was basically as coming up..this is what I knew about Christianity
was the stories that I learnt in sunday school
because I never listened to the preacher during regular service
So that was the only thing I knew about Christianity
So coming up,this was how it was..it was just the norm..and..
the conservatism in my house..
just to give you an example
and..about the level of conservatism
is..
Let's talk about general issues
Let's say when I became 12,13,14 and I started to actually,you know..
notice females
and I actually didn't think they had diseases and wanted to run away from them everytime I saw them
Let's say I wanted to
have a girl over or something of this nature
It was so..serious to my grandmother
that I had to make an appointment with her
let her know this girl was coming to my house
We had to sit in the formal living room
which in the south,I don't know how it is here
but you have the dining room,then you have the formal living room
with all the nice stuff that you don't go in unless there's company over
and my grandmother either had to be sitting in the same room with us
or in the kitchen where she could see directly in the room
I mean this is just how it was in my house
This is how my grandmother and grandfather were
They were very stern
they were very loving
but there were rules,and the rules were the way they were and they did not change
So this was my upbringing
And..I would say,at about the age of 12,13,14
more along the age 13,14
I started going to the saturday evening youth services at my church
They were for 12 and up
and..the youth services were held in the gym
and they were totally different than church
At the youth services we went, we played basketball,
we played volleyball,we played dodgeball
we played every kind of sport
and we ate pizza and cake and candy
all the stuff kids like to do
and at the end
the Youth Minister,who happened to be my neighbor across the street
when I was 14 he was 17
He was the Youth Minister
So he would sit us down and give us a 30 minute lecture
about Christianity
about..something about God
He would give us a 30 minute sermon
and that's how the youth services were..and..
going to these youth services,I met some other people who went to other youth services
they invited me to Young Men for Christ
and other things that were going on in South Carolina
and so I started to go to these different retreats
and camping trips with them
and so that is why I would say that I started to become a Christian out of will
I became a Christian because I wanted to
not because it was something I was dragged to do
I started to actually want to be Christian
This is something I wanted to do
I made my own choice,and my own decision to do it
So..when I turned 15
I started going to high school
and..when I was a freshman in high school
my best friend who was the youth minister
was a senior in high school
and I remember we had a very close bond
because I didn't have my license yet
so I used to ride with him to school everyday
and it was a big deal for me to get a ride to school with a senior
specially since he had a brand new
it wasn't a brand new,but he had a restored 67-Mustang
which I've always been a fan of cars when I was a kid
So we had a very close bond and we were very good friends
cuz both of our parents were very similar..they didn't let us do much
So..we spent a lot of time with each other
and..when I became a sophomore,he graduated
and started to attend Bob Jones University
I don't know if that rings a bell with anyone
But Bob Jones University is a very prestigious
conservative Christian college in South Carolina
It's probably 'the' most conservative college I've ever seen because
the Moody institute is known as one of the most famous in this country..it's in chicago
but Bob Jones is conservative to the point where
when it comes to men and women like..
men and women are not allowed to get caught talking to each other
and roam alone if they're not married
holding hands on campus
the men had to wear buttoned-up shirts
or polo shirts tucked in with slacks or jeans
the women had to wear skirts,no jeans
skirts that came down to the ankle
and a shirt that came to the wrist
this was part of the guidelines for Bob Jones University
you know..you didn't party,you didn't drink
there was none this that happened at Bob Jones University
And he started going there
and his major was textual critisism
and..textual critisism probably doesn't ring a bell with anyone
and to explain it in detail would probably take an entire
another entire lecture
but just to give you a brief synopsis of what is textual critisism
A textual critic takes the ancient manuscripts of the Bible
The pieces of parchments that were found all over the world
and he has to learn Hebrew,Greek,Aramaic,Latin
you know..these languages that these parchments have been found in
and he has to take these scriptures
and try to find out
where they came from
why there are variations in the many different versions
of the same parchment
Let's say you have Mathew chapter 1 from the Bible
there might be 5000 different variant readings of Mathew chapter 1
in 6 languages
So he has to take all of these
and swift through them
try to find out why there are so many variations of the readings
and then determine which one is the original
and..that's not as easy a task as it seems..
you could figure whichever is the oldest is probably more original
which is not the case since there are no originals
you might have one parchment that is
the 'oldest' parchment of the group
but it might a copy of a copy
of a copy of a copy
of a copy of a copy
with..lain with mistakes
and then you might have the 'newest' parchment in the series
that might be a once overcopy from an original
or twice or second copy from an original
therefore it would made the newer parchment more original than the older one
So it's not a very easy field to go into
and..
He started studying textual critisism
and being that I was his best friend
I started studying textual critisism
whenever he was doing his homework
or research papers
you know..I was right there with him
whenever he did a homework he would always let me read it
or when he finished his papers,he would give them to me
He would pass down all those papers to me
Every textbook when he was done with it
he would give it to me
I started to learn a little bit of Greek
a little bit of Hebrew
So I became..started to become a layman textual critic
And I applied to Bob Jones University in my Sophomore year
because it was a 3 year waiting process for Bob Jones
and..when I turned 16..almost 17
my friend came to me one day
and he asked me a question
that I had never really even pondered upon
He asked me,he said,"Have you ever read the Bible?"
and I said,"No..in church,I mean yeah..
we've all read the Bible in church.."
you know..parents make you open it up and look at it
and at the Bible studies I went to Young Men for Christ
we did have Bible studies
we would read a few passages and talk for 2 hours about those few passages
But he's like,no,no..have you ever 'read' it?
like how you read a book,beginning to end
I said no,I don't know anybody
nobody that I know had ever read it
beginning Genesis 1:1 till the end
He said..so..but this is the inerrant the word of God
as we're taught
this is our instructions on earth
why haven't we read it?
You know,why have we not read this book?
I said..you know,that's a very good question
And he gave me a challenge
was basically a challenge for us both
He said..let us start with Genesis 1:1
and let's read the Bible
and let's see what God says to us
because this is the inerrant word of God
inspired to men
for instructions for us
so let us see what God says to us
If God can talk to the preacher through this book,
why can't He talk to me?
I said you're right
I said that's very good..I had a lot of time in my hands
wasn't really allowed to do much
anyway after shool
So I said why not,let's read the Bible
I was somewhat nerdy as a 14,15 year old
16 year old..
So we started to read the Bible
and we decided to go from Genesis 1:1
and what we tried to do
this was the attempt we made..it was to
not to think of anything that we had ever heard about Christianity
but to
open the Bible
and..let's say I found this book in the desert
and read it and see what it says to me
let it talk to us
So we started Genesis 1:1
and we started reading through the Bible
we did some of it together
most of it I did by myself
Because I'm a very very quick reader
so I started to read a lot on my own
and as I was reading through the Bible
I started to notice the stories that I had heard in sunday school
you know..you start reading Genesis
you read about Adam and Eve
we all know that story
you start reading about Deuteronomy
Exodus..you know..the stories of Moses
The story of Noah,
the story of Lot,and Abraham
and all these stories that I know
But I was surprisingly and astonishedly shocked
by some of the stories
that I read about the same people
that I learnt about in sunday school
just for instance
and this is a big testament to why
Allah (Almighty God) kept sending us Prophets
and why Islam was sent as a complete and perfected Deen (way of life) with the Qur'an
If you read about Noah in the Bible
There is this story about Noah saving
humanity from the flood
with an ark and all of that
there is this in the Bible
there is another aspect to the story of Noah
that not many people know about
unless they actually take time to open the Bible
this will not be preached from any pope anywhere
is that..the Bible says that Noah was an alcoholic
this is the Bible's potrayal of Noah
or Nuh (Alaihis salam-peace be upon him)
that he was an alcoholic,he was a drunkard
this is the word used in the Bible
that he was a man given to alcohol
and..
I'm a psychology major
and my field of specialty is mental illnesses
and alcoholism is one of those..is a mental illness
and I know from seeing alcoholism's affect
on one of my close friend's parent
I know that someone who is truly addicted to alcohol
and if Noah lived for so long addicted to alcohol
he was seriously addicted to alcohol
it is hard for someone addicted to alcohol
to hold down a 9 to 5 job
working at Mc.Donald's flipping hamburgers
much less
construct an ark
to save humanity from a flood that's never happened
So..
that stopped me for a moment in my track
and I said..Noah was an alcoholic!
you know..and..It bothered me for a minute
because I said..you know..
things started popping up in my mind
like if Noah was a drunkard how do we know if God was talking to him?
because you know..
I've seen some people that are alcoholics
You were just asleep in dog's food bowl the other night
drooling..and now you're telling me you were talking to God last night?
You know..rationally that would not make sense to me
That's like..you know
an alcoholic on the street coming to you and telling you God's talking to him
you know..
He has no..this would give this man no validity
This man has no validity with anyone
so..
I didn't pay it too much attention..it caught me
but I said..you know what
I'm gonna keep going
because there is one thing that you don't do in Christianity
and I'll you what it is in a minute when I started doing it
Then I came across the story of Lot
or Lut (Alaihis salam-peace be upon him)
and we all know the story of *** and Gomorrah and these stories
but there's another very twisted story in the Bible
about Lot and his daughters
there's a story of Lot and his daughters
in the Bible
it says his daughters got him drunk one night
and seduced him and committed *** with him
naudhubillah
This is the Bible..this is one of the the Bible potrayals of the prophets of God
The person who saved..
saved his family from *** and Gomorrah
This is the story that is in the Bible
So I'm catching myself again
Like..this is becoming a really..
bad habit that I'm seeing
This is becoming a bad recurrence that I'm seeing
over and over again in this Bible
So..
you know..after that I started..you know
speeding through some of the other mumbo jumbo to get to more of these Prophet's stories
and..
I got to the story,there are others..
and there are some stories in the Bible
that are not PG-rated,period.
They're not rated for talking..anywhere
you know..you would need
an 18 above ID card for me to even tell you these stories
So the one that intrigued me..that caught my attention the most
was of my most beloved story in the Bible
and that was of David and Goliath
That was my most intriguing story to me because
not only was..you know..it's said in the Bible that David was a very small man
and Goliath was a very big man
and that was appealing to me because
I've always been very short
and as a kid I was really short
So..this was a very beautiful story to me just in its prose and in its concept
of overcoming
and..
So I started to read about David
and there appeared very beautiful stories about David in the Bible
there are indeed
but there is one story about David in the Bible
that shocked me to my core
and it's a story about three people
there's three people in this drama
David,Bathsheba and Uriah
and..
it says that David saw this woman named Bathsheba
and she was one of the most beautiful women of her time
and she happened to be married
to one of the commanders of his army named Uriah
but David on this day decided that
he was not able to resist his temptation
to be with this woman Bathsheba
so he did it..and he committed adultery with her
and..
knowing that he did this
the way that he decided to cover up
was he sent a letter to the generals of his army
saying that when the battle was fierce
for everyone to pull back and abandon Uriah
so that he would be killed
and when he dies,he can have Bathsheba
No harm,no foul
So..David went from being
the slayer of Goliath
the hero of a man
to an adulterer
a plotter and a murderer
and so..
this is when I really caught myself and said hold on now..
something's wrong here
something's got to give
I said because to me
God's prophets in my mind
were people of example
people who I could follow as an example
someone who was supposed to be the best of us
so that we could follow them and emulate them
and they're turning out to be
worse than some of the people
that you see on America's Most Wanted
David is somebody that..if I only knew this about him from the Bible
I see him coming down the street
I'm going the other way and calling 911
this is what I'm thinking in my mind
This man is not an honourable man at all
Ok he killed Goliath..yeah but he killed this other guy named Uriah
to be able to commit adultery with his wife
So I committed the cardinal sin in Christianity
I started asking questions
This is the one thing you DO NOT do in Christianity
is that you don't ask questions
especially not about issues like this
So I went to my pastor and I started asking questions
you know..what's going on here?
you know..pastor,there's a very bad reccuring habit about these men in the Bible
what is the deal here?
And I remember he told me the same thing
that almost every pastor or every evangelist
or anyone I talked to about this
same,same,same answer
almost like he was programmed
they would put their hand on my shoulders and say,'Brother Joshua..
don't let a little bit of knowledge wreck your faith
because you're not justified by knowledge
you're justified by faith'
and they would quote me verses like
you know,Paul's where justified by faith in Jesus Christ
you know..they would quote these whole line of things to me
like it was already pre-programmed
like they programmed them in Pastor school
people are gonna ask you questions and here's the answer
so..
you know..I said to myself
you know..I don't know Pastor..
this seems kind of odd
He said..let me tell you something
What you're reading is the Old testament
referring to God's covenant with the Children of Israel
and they were a different people
a very stubborn,crazy people
so..why don't you move on to the New testament?
In the New Testament you'll find the new covenant they were under with Jesus Christ
and I promise you things will change and be better
I said ok,perfect
So I read all..went ahead and finished and got to Malachi
and then started with the New testament
So I opened the New testament and said here we go
You know..let's start all over again
But there were a few things
that I had learnt from the Old Testament
that I wanted to keep in mind when I started to read the New Testament
I learnt no.1 that God was One in a unique sense
This is what I learnt from the Old Testament
That was God was One in a singular,unique sense
This is over and over and over and over
very clearly in the Bible..God's nature is One
This is so clear through the Old Testament
and that He was very jealous about His worship
and every single time the children of Israel
would turn to something else other than Him,
He would punish them and restrict their lifestyle
This is something that I learnt
and..
it kind of..
the similitude to me of how God dealt with the children of Israel
was..and I hate to use this
stark..the stark contrast
but it's almost as if
one of us..
God forbid..naudhubillah..I hope not
and let's say we went out and robbed the bank
you rob a bank,you go into jail for a long time
and everyday when you wake up
do you think that that jail is going to look like the Hilton at LAX?
No..I doubt it
It's probably dark,cold,
bad food,
orange jump suits,
not nice people the whole nine yards
and the reason why this is and I know this now cuz I studied psychology
is that this is supposed to be a stark reminder
every single day when this person wakes up
that you are in jail
this is supposed to remind them every single day
you're in jail because you committed a crime
and we run this,not you
This is the message that is being potrayed to this person in jail
so..
when the children of Israel kept rebelling against God
He restricted their lifestyle
If you study Judaic Law,
it's some of the most strict religious law you can find
All of the good things that we enjoy as muslims
even when it comes to dietery laws like the good parts of the meat that we're allowed to eat
they can't have these things
these are things that are restricted from them
Why?..Because God (Allah) wanted to remind them everyday
That I am Allah
I am your God,you will worship Me
I run this
not you
and I understood this from reading the Old Testament
This is a concept I had come across
So,I started with the New Testament
Mathew,Mark,Luke and John
And other thing that I did when I started to read the Bible was..if you go to Barnes&Noble
let's say you go to Barnes&Noble and you a book off the shelf
What usually is the first thing you look at?
the title..
then the next thing
the author
You want to know the title and the author
what is the name of the book,who wrote it
And if you do this test
with every single book of the Bible
you get a title..and no author
author unknown
or author is..
appears to be so-and-so
or we derived that so-and-so has possibly written this
you know,let's say for Exodus
They say Moses wrote Exodus
which if you read some of Exodus
He couldn't have written all of Exodus
because the last part of Exodus is Moses' death,burial and Joshua taking over
the children of Israel
now unless Moses was assure indeed Prophet that was able to write things after he died,
then he did not write these things
And so when you go to Mathew,Mark,Luke and John
I wanted to know Mathew who?
Mark who,Luke who,John who?
because it's called the Gospel 'according to Mathew'
The bad thing is that no one knows
No one knows because no one penned their names down to these things
No Bible scholar in his right mind
would tell you that..
we know for sure Mathew so-and-so wrote this
Mark so-and-so wrote this
Luke so-and-so wrote this
John so-and-so wrote this
It's factual information that we do not know who wrote these
So I was intrigued,I'm like hmm..
You know..why would somebody write a book that's supposed to be passed down
over generations and people are supposed to think it's the inspired word of God to guide mankind
and nobody decided to write..pen down who wrote it
but anyway..
I started to read it
and I started to notice things
about the teachings of Jesus Christ
and they were not what I had learnt in church
When Jesus spoke
he spoke of the nature of God
and when he spoke of the nature of God,
it was the same nature of God that I'd found in the Old Testament
Jesus said..many times
that God is One..God is unique
he would even quote from the Hebrew scriptures
'Hear O Israel,the Lord,your God is but One'
When he was asked
what is the greatest commandment
he was asked the greatest commandment
he said the greatest commandment
and every Muslim should understand these two concepts
they should be nothing new to you
the greatest commandment is to
love the Lord,your God with all your heart
with all your mind,with all your strength
and then to love your neighbor as you love yourself
he said the rest hang on these two
which we know..in Islam we have
rights of the Creator,
and rights of the creation
so this was the concept that he was teaching
and..he even said in 1st John 5-17
and this was more clear to me than anything else can be
'This is life eternal,that they may know You..the only true God
the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent'
and when you look at that in the Greek and the Aramaic,
it is almost exactly twaity
of La ilaaha ilallah Muhammadur-Rasoolullah
now that I know Arabic and have understood it
Very same similar statements
Yes,indeed there were some implicit statements
about..that you could implicitly
if you took them and separated them from everything else,you can maybe derive
that Jesus was trying to claim some divinity
or something for himself
but..
I also know from doing psychology
an implicit statement cannot overwrite an explicit statement
an explicit statement always takes precedence
so..if Jesus said God is one
and he anagorically may have alluded to God being more than one
then the clear statement overwrites that each and every single time
So this is what I found through the New Testament
and I also found that
Jesus taught salvation
but his salvation that he taught was
obeying God and following the commandments
this was his mode of salvation
One man asked him
Good master,tell me how I can inherit the eternal life?
He said, "Follow the commandments"
"Follow the commandments"
He even..in Mathew was so sincere about it
He said,whosoever shall follow the least of these commandments and teach men to do so
shall be called the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven
But whosoever shall break the least of these commandments and teach men to do so,
shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven
So this I understood very clearly
that Jesus taught the same nature of God that was in the Old Testament
He taught that..
the salvation lied in worshipping God
and following the commandments
This I understood..Mathew,Mark,Luke and John were very clear about this
you know there were other things..the only begotten son
you know..but these things were not in red letters
so I did not give them as much weight
as I what did to the actual words
that Jesus Christ was saying out of his own mouth
So..I read Mathew,Mark,Luke and John
all of it was saying the same to me
I was thinking to myself
This is not what I was taught about Christianity
You know..you're taught that God is 1 in 3,3 in 1
You know..1+1+1=3
Father,son,holy spirit
Jesus died on the cross to forgive your sin
you know..and..there was another thing
that I noticed from the Old Testament
and this is a beautiful lesson to Muslims
because you're asked this all the time
specially when it comes to Da'wah
I never put 2 and 2 together,until I learnt Islam
and then..read the Bible one more time
is I wanted to know why the Jews wanted to crucify Jesus so bad
so bad..
they could've just mobbed him anywhere and killed him on the street
he's not like he had clamps like the Arabs
they would've come and backed him up
I said why didn't they just kill him?
You know..why were they so strict and sincere
to tell Pontius Pilate
you gotta kill him and you need to sanction it
we can do it but you need to sanction it to kill him
and now I understand it
was that..Jesus had a mission
and..
that mission was to share God with the world
and..
Paul even kind of tells on himself
in his book of Galatians
as to why Jesus was made to be crucified
and the Jews wanted to crucify him
Paul said that the crucifixion is the stumbling block for the Jews
and he explained in Galatians
that Jesus Christ
this is how he tried to round about explain it
was cursed for us,to remove us from the curse of Allah
by taking this curse upon us for it's written
and he quoted the Old Testament
'Everything that hangeth on a tree is cursed'
So I went back and studied the Old Testament and Judaic law
and I realised that
people who were crucified
that was considered a curse upon them
you had to do something pretty serious
to get crucifixion
cuz it was considered a curse from God
It was part of their law
that when someone is crucified,that person is cursed
So wherever they bury these criminals
like in the graveyards
in Israel and Jerusalem and Palestine
where they bury these criminals that were crucified,
this was considered curseground
this was considered ground that you didn't go
and you did nothing here
because these people are cursed..by God
So..I started to put 2 and 2 together
that it's not that they wanted to kill Jesus..
cuz they could've just killed him
they wanted to disprove who he was
This was their point,was to disprove who this man was
He said he's the Messiah
They wanted to disprove it and they knew
if you can crucify Jesus,he can't be the Messiah
He cannot be our Messiah if you can crucify him
And even if he is,if we can still force our crucifixion on him
then that would detriment his message
So they understood this and knew this
and this is why they wanted to crucify him
and this is exactly why Allah saved him from it
This..cuz everyone ask you why did Allah save him from the crucifixion
because you cannot..
that was part of his law that he came to fulfil
that he could not be cursed according to this law
He said I've come to fulfil the law..to fulfil it..
therefore he couldn't be cursed according to it
and this is why he went to the Garden of Gethsemane
and asked God to remove this from him
because he knew how detrimental this was to his message
of crucifixion
So..I began to see all of these things
So,and I started to read..I got to the Book of Acts
and started to read the writings of Paul,the Apostle
and..
things went from this to this
it went from one way to another way
It went completely flip,turned around
the entire teachings went from
obeying God,worshipping God,following the law
to worshipping Jesus Christ
and abolishing the Law completely
Paul even wrote to the Galatians
O you foolish Galatians,why you're still following this cursed Law
Jesus Christ came as a curse to remove us from the affliction of this curse
So I said to myself..
But Jesus just said..
a few books before this
that whosoever shall break the least of these commandments and teach men to do so
shall be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven
and here we go Paul preaching in this Gospel
to abolish the Law
So I even asked..
What is going on here?
so..
I started asking my pastor and my pastor said
Now you're getting into deep water
you know..now you're starting to question the New Testament
You really have some issues
you know,they even thought that I might be
you know,possessed and all kinds of things
so..I had a very big conflict going on inside of me
and my friend took me to his..
his textual critic...teacher,his professor
and what this man told me
probably wrecked my faith in Christianity
and I always say..I doubt you'd be very happy
me travelling around the world telling people
that a Christian professor from Bob Jones University
wrecked my faith in Christianity
but he did..
cuz what I asked him
was..what happened to all these contradictions?
you know,in the Old Testament there are many contradictions
If you study Hebrew language you'll understand
that when you read some of the Old Testament,or the Torah
that there are some parts of the Torah
that you can see is the most beautiful Arabic that you can see
I mean the most beautiful Hebrew that you can see
just like when you read the Qur'an..it's very beautiful Hebrew
and then two chapters later you'll see
Hebrew that looks like broken 3year old
who..is trying to scribble some Hebrew down
looks very colloquial,very dialetic
you can tell it's not the same person speaking
so I started to..I went and asked him about all this stuff I saw
and he told me,he said..
what you have is a book written by men
over centuries and centuries and eons and eons
and he says,
and this book started as an orginal
that was copied and copied and copied
and somebody added a mistake and somebody came behind him
and corrected that mistake and added two of his own
someone came and copied and skipped a line and added a line that wasn't suppsed to be
and then someone else came and copied and took it to his country
and inorder for it to
fit well with the doctrine they were teaching,
he would cross out a dot here
or cross out a word here
or change a word here
so that it would fit with the
with the theological ideas of this part of the world
and he said..
and after all these years
you have a book now that is compiled now from all of this,
written by the hands of men
that still have men's fingerprints left on it
and that's what you have
you have an imperfect book
that is only perfected through faith
this is exactly what he told me
this book is perfected through faith
you cannot perfect it textually
it's not a textually perfect book
those who believe in it,believe in it by faith
And so I said..here we go again with this faith thing
you know..I said..God gave me a brain for a reason
If He did not want me to use it,
He would remove this reason and logic part of my brain out
and replace it with more faith
and I was of the opinion
as the saying goes..
my grandmother didn't raise a fool
I'm no fool
you know..I said I can't..
I can't believe in this
I mean this book
I've been taught is the inerrant word of God
and you're just telling me it's a book of errors
that's only perfect through faith
That's like me taking a 1982 Datsun
and say if you believe it can really be a Mercedez
If you believe..
You know..that would make no sense
You can't take a car to the car dealership and say that
No,no if you really believe,if you look at it right,it's a Mercedez
So I said no..
You know..this is a book full of errors
and God's religion is perfect
If God has a religion,it's perfect
If He has a book,it has to be perfect
because He is perfect
So I left Christianity completely
and..I decided that
I had learnt some concepts from the Bible
God is One,you couldn't fool me on that
you know..I had also concepted that
there should be nobody standing between me and God
because He created me without permission from anyone
therefore I don't need to be taking permission from someone to go to Him
If I had to be forgiven for something,it should come from Him
because on the Day of Judgement it's going to be me and Him alone
and I didn't know about God's prophets yet
I had my doubts and persuasions about that
so I decided to start searching other religions
I went back to Judaism,I studied Judaism
found the same thing that Jesus taught about
spiritual,too spiritual Jews that leave the law
and Jews that were so caught up in the law that they left no room for spirituality
I studied Budhism,Hinduism
Taoism,Confucianism
Wiccan,Bushido
everything I could get my hands on
every type of ism or religion
I studied it
but there was one litmus test that I used for every religion
and when I saw,whenever I met them
or the people or whatever about this religion
I always used to ask them
Do you have a book?
because another thing I had come to the conclusion of is that
If your religion is true,
you should be able to tangibly hand me something
and show me that this religion is true
Give me something that I can see
I don't wanna hear that faith stuff anymore
I heard that all my life
and look where it got me
it got me thinking I'm driving a Mercedez
running around in 1982 beat up Datsun
I said,no..you have to show me
And I started to read the Bhagawad Gita,
I read the Torah,
I read the Scrolls of Tao,
I read the Code of the Bushido,
I read the Wiccan book of spirits and spells
and all the other magic stuff they have
and I read all of these things
and I found something very concurrent with all of that
was that they were very same philosophies and teachings
and all of these major religious books
they all talked about God and His nature
Most of them alluded to the fact that God is One
and that God sends Messengers to us to teach us
But they were filled with a whole bunch of..
garbage..to be honest with you
that I couldn't logically,rationally believe
so..
At about the age of 17
Just about..17,17 and a half
I gave up my search for God
and I became kind of angry with God
because I said,here I am looking for You
and..
I can't find You
and it doesn't look like You'll give me any help
and..I don't know how many of you know
but for a 17 year old who's frustrated with God and the world
is a lot of trouble he can get into
there's a lot of things he can do
to put himself in predicaments
when he's frustrated with the world
and had come to the conception that
you know..if there's a God that exists
then He doesn't really care about me
you know..that's a kind of a dangerous young man
So..I started doing the whole partying
going to parties,
drinking under-age
all of this stuff I started doing..you know..
I'm a perfectionist at heart
So..when I was a Christian,
I tried to be the best one I could
If I was gonna switch to being any other religion
then I was gonna do that a 100%
So you better believe when I went after the dunya (world),I did that a 100%
and..you know..
I was a martial artist
since I was 15 years old
and even though it was only 2 years,you know..
2 years of 17 you think,you know
Bruce Lee..
So I got into a lot of fights
Got kicked out of school,had to go to another school
got in one fight,got arrested for a fight..you know
and there were couple of incidences that stopped this downward spiral
because I was on a very,very quick downward spiral
I believe if I would've continued on that downward spiral
I would've probably end up hurting someone,killing someone
or them hurting or killing me
And there were two incidences that brought that to an abrupt stop
like pulling the emergency brake..and..
the first one..
was a car accident that I was in
My friend and I
were on the way back from Clemson University
from a frat party
and we were driving out in South Carolina..and..
we were both
highly intoxicated
and..
I decided that night..he was driving
and I decided to put my seatbelt on
for the only reason that
I kept falling over when I fell asleep
without the seatbelt on
because I didn't really believe in a seatbelt thing
because I said if I'm gonna die,I'm gonna die
you know..that's the conception that I'd come up with
You know...if it's time for me to die,it's time for me to die
I didn't believe in the whole 'tie your camel' thing
So I put up my seatbelt
and..I fell asleep
and the next thing I remember waking up with a car shaking
and I woke up..to grab my friend
because I thought maybe he'd fallen asleep
but when I woke up,
the only thing I saw
was..
the tree line and then the pavement coming right at my face
and the window smashing,
and the car flipping the whole nine yards
and us landing in a ditch
And I remember getting out of the car
that was the first thing I thought
you know..no.1 I couldn't believe it
you don't really thing about,oh you're alive..no,you just move
I jumped out of the car
and realised that
I had jumped out of the back of the car that wasn't there anymore
it was still in the median
on the other side of the highway
and the front part of the car was..over in a ditch
and I dragged my friend out
who was now unconscious
and pulled him over to the side road..I had no injuries
I looked at myself trying to find what's missing
and there was nothing but a piece of glass stuck in my arm that I pulled out
and it just so happened that a state trooper was passing the other way
because he turned around and came back..and..
when he came back he asked what had happened
The first thing he asked me was..did you see what happened?
because I guess he thought that I was a bystander
cuz I started to walk towards him
He's like,did you see what happened?
You know..where are the people?
I said,yeah..I really saw what happened
I was in the car
You know..and he was like..
you know..as they say like the colour drained out of his face
because he was shocked
he said..no,how were you in that car!
you know..and..
ofcourse they took to the hospital
my friend got arrested..DUI
but before he put us in the ambulance
he was a man of God
because he looked at me and he told me
He said,young man..
you better realise that you're on this earth tonight for a purpose
The only reason you're still alive is that God has a purpose for you
if not..you don't live through things like that
people without purpose
if you didn't have a purpose
then this night would've been your night
So you need to realise that
I said this old man is out of his mind
you know..if God had been looking for me,He had the opportunity to get me a long time ago
So don't tell me about that God stuff now
So I paid him no attention
and..about a month later,3-4 weeks later
my friend and I,same two
he's on crutches still
we decided to go to New York City
We decided to just take off,drive to New York City
We didn't tell our parents where we're going
I said I was sleeping in his house,he said he was sleeping in my house for the weekend
So we drove to New York
and..in New York..I remember going to the ATM to get some money
and..in New York they have these ATMs
where we have to go in a glassroom
to get your money from ATM
I don't know if they have that here
or if any of you have been to New York
Now,Alhamdulilah,you have to put your bank card in to go in there
but in '97 it was not like this
You went in..and it was almost like the game mousetrap
because you go in,take out your money,criminal comes right behind you
there's nowhere for you to go
you know..there's nowhere to run